Mr. Speaker, sadly, and to emphasize the petition we just heard on Darfur, I am presenting another petition on Darfur, with signatures collected by Canadians for Action in Darfur from the people of Ottawa, who are asking us to stop the humanitarian crisis. As was just said, 400,000 people have been killed since 2003 and 2.5 million have been ripped from their homes.

Canada has a responsibility to work with the international community to end this atrocity. The signatories want the government to know that each signature on the petition represents 100 innocent dead citizens of Darfur.

Mr. Speaker, this petition in regard to Bill C-51 is from about 100 residents of the West Kootenays. Their petition says that 70% of Canadians currently use natural health products, that they do not wish to have natural health products in the same category as pharmaceuticals, and that they want to use their right to free choice as to whether they use natural health products or drugs to maintain wellness.

Therefore, they call upon Parliament to vote against Bill C-51 as it is written and to protect their rights as consumers of natural health products.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today with two petitions regarding the issue of the continued humanitarian abuses that are taking place in Darfur. Since 2003 over 400,000 people have been killed and 2.5 million displaced. Horror stories like this should not exist. It is our responsibility to lead the abolishment of the despair, rape and death that currently plague this particular region of the world.

I am proud to present these petitions to the Department of Foreign Affairs with the hope that the government will encourage and participate in all necessary measures to end this crisis once and for all.

Mr. Speaker, I have been asked to submit a petition to the House to strengthen animal transportation regulations. The petitioners say that transportation times in Canada are among the longest in the industrialized world and are not consistent with scientific findings on animal welfare during transport, and that animals become injured and diseased during transport. They are calling upon the House of Commons to amend the animal transport regulations to be consistent with EU scientific findings on animal health and welfare.

Mr. Speaker, we continue to receive petitions, name after name, day after day, supporting Bill C-484. These petitioners recognize that pregnant women who have decided to bring their pregnancy to term and have a child actually deserve protection in law for that choice. The most poignant part of their petition is that they ask that injuring or killing an unborn baby during a violent act be a criminal offence.

I am very pleased to present these petitions, which today come mostly from the town of Estevan in Saskatchewan.

Mr. Speaker, as you know, I have sent you a letter advising that I would be seeking an emergency debate on the west coast Pacific salmon. The reason I am doing so is that I have tried to get a take note debate on the subject but that was not possible.

On the west coast, salmon are in trouble. If we do not act quickly, we are at risk of losing many species, especially the Chinook, Coho and Sockeye.

I am asking for this debate after speaking with many of the stakeholders who fish this once great and abundant resource. They are all saying the same thing: “Help”. They are asking for help from the government to protect fish habitat, enforce regulations, and learn about and protect the health of the ocean.

Salmon are the canary in the coal mine of our oceans. Many other species depend on them for survival, including bears and whales. For thousands of years, first nations have relied on salmon. Now they are being asked to ration their catch.

The economy of our west coast communities will also feel the pain. Given the current downturn in the forest sector, it might well be the tipping point for many of our coastal communities, which are struggling not to become ghost towns.

Just yesterday we celebrated Oceans Day, but with 70% of the world's fisheries in decline, including our salmon, it is truly an emergency and not much to celebrate.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your careful consideration of this request and look forward to an opportunity to raise awareness of the declining Pacific salmon.

I thank the hon. member for her intervention. I acknowledge that this has been an ongoing crisis, if I can use that word, for some time in terms of fish stocks, but I note that in her letter she stated that “Canadian and American negotiators... worked out changes to the Pacific Salmon Treaty that will reduce the commercial Chinook salmon fishery off the west coast of Vancouver Island for conservation efforts”. Efforts are being made.

I have heard her submissions. I am aware somewhat of the situation and certainly aware of its seriousness, but I am not sure that it meets the exigencies of the Standing Order in constituting an emergency at this time. Accordingly, I decline the request at this time.

Mr. Speaker, it is fair to say that Bill C-51 has attracted a fair bit of attention. We have been debating it again today.

Bill C-51 is an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts. Needless to say, the Food and Drugs Act definitely needs updating. It is an old act. It goes back to about 1934. It has had a few tweaks along the way, but certainly it is time for some updates to the Food and Drugs Act.

There are some good provisions in the bill, that is for sure, including life cycle monitoring of pharmaceutical drugs and mandatory reporting of adverse events. These are very positive things that need to be done because there are serious concerns about these products.

The public response overwhelmingly on the negative side has been over concerns about what will happen to the natural health products industry under the regulations.

In illustrating some of those concerns, I wish to make reference to a letter that I received recently from a number of very distinguished and concerned scientists, which illustrates the concerns that are out there. I received this letter on May 4. It is a copy of a letter to the minister and states:

We, the undersigned, are physicians, scientists and practitioners of international origin with considerable experience in the use of natural health products. We are gathered in Vancouver at the Fairmont Hotel to attend the 37th Annual International Conference on Orthomolecular Medicine...

We are most concerned that the Bill will lead to loss of access to valuable food supplements and other nutritional products for our patients and for many others, who have often found such products to be essential in maintaining their health.

Another point they make is this:

Nutritional products are qualitatively different from pharmaceutical products and carry an undetectably small risk of harm....

They provide a reference from the journals about that. They continue:

There are therefore no grounds to impose on them the same risk-benefit analysis structure that is proposed for all therapeutic products under this bill.

The majority of organizations and commercial bodies operating in the natural product field are run by individuals or are small businesses. The regulatory hurdles proposed will be too high for many of them to achieve, and the penalties proposed for infringements of this bill are grossly disproportionate and unnecessarily severe.

They go on to state:

We are also concerned at the potential impact on the regulatory climate in our own countries, given the international trend to harmonization.

We encourage your department to open dialogue with our Canadian colleagues in the hope we can find a workable solution.

This letter is signed by scientists from around the world. They are from the Netherlands, Japan, the United States, Finland and Norway. There is a PhD neurochemist from the U.S.A. Others are from Switzerland, Spain, Mexico, and other countries. There is Professor Harold Foster, PhD, from Victoria.

I use this only by way of illustration. This discussion we are having in Canada about Bill C-51 to amend the Food and Drugs Act is being noticed by health care practitioners from other countries. They are concerned about the impact it will have on regulations in their own countries.

One of the points they raised at the end is that they encourage the department to “open dialogue with our Canadian colleagues in the hope we can find a workable solution”.

I know that since the bill has been introduced most of my colleagues here in the House have had a fair bit of representation from concerned citizens. I am sure that most members have heard from constituents. At the latest count in my office, I have had 380 responses raising concerns about the bill. I am sure that others have had dozens if not hundreds of representations and I know there has been a fair bit of concern and discussion.

In response to that, the Minister of Health has launched some consultations with industry across the country. The minister and his team were out in Vancouver for consultations and in Toronto and other major centres as they consulted with industry leaders about how to remedy the concerns that are out there. I know that he is working on some amendments and I look forward to seeing them presented in the House shortly.

At this second reading stage of the bill, it is certainly not possible for the minister to introduce amendments, but I understand that there will be a forthcoming indication of some amendments that our government members will bring forward at the health committee if and when the legislation passes second reading.

Therefore, I welcome those amendments. I look forward to what I understand will include an attempt to create a legislative third category. That is something that people have been interested in. That is one of the major concerns that have been expressed and there will be other substantial amendments to alleviate the way the bill would be applied as well as to clarify concerns that have been raised. We look forward to those amendments coming forward and being able to go over in detail what those changes mean.

The minister stated that it is not his nor the government's intention to restrict natural health product availability in Canada. I am sure and I have every reason to believe that he is very sincere in making those statements. I have no reason not to believe him or the government in their intentions.

The problem is that, given the history of actions by Health Canada over the past several years, the increased powers and the changes proposed by Bill C-51 give informed Canadians a very great cause for concern. In that regard, I would like to review some of the history and illustrate a couple of the concerns related to the bill as it stands.

Going back over at least four previous health ministers, there was an effort to regulate natural health products as drugs under the Food and Drugs Act. By the way, I think everyone recognized that there was a need to bring in regulations for natural health products. Everyone wants to make sure that we have good manufacturing practices, we need office inspections and some quality control measures there, and we certainly want to make sure that what is on the label is actually in the bottle.

So, certainly regulation is necessary. Everyone is in support of regulation. It is the type of regulation that is being considered here and the concerns about whether those regulations are appropriate for the low risk and the natural character of these products. By nature they are low risk, they are low cost, they are non-patentable items, they are more akin to food, concentrated food items, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, which are components of protein, and that is the stuff we are made out of, and therefore by nature it is low risk and well tolerated in biological systems.

Going back through a bit of the history, there was a huge public response out of the attempt by former minister David Dingwall to regulate natural health products as drugs. It was followed up by Allan Rock. Allan Rock, as minister, put the brakes on the process and commissioned the health committee to investigate and produce a report. There were widespread consultations and a report was tabled in 1998, making some 53 recommendations.

That was followed by the creation of a transition team of experts. Some 17 experts came together to try to organize how would this new office of natural health products come together and what form it would take. They made recommendations that were published in a report in the year 2000.

I note that the transition team, in their report, had a vision that they articulated there. They hoped that the minister would be a champion for a new era for NHPs, natural health products; that vitamins and minerals would take their place in improving the health of Canadians and the health care system in Canada, that the minister would be a champion for helping natural health products find their way to taking their rightful place in strengthening Canadians, improving prevention of disease, promoting wellness, and helping keep people off the waiting lists that are so troubling to anyone trying to access health services for serious health failures.

In the 37th Parliament I introduced Bill C-420 which was to move the natural health products department office, which changed names from the office of the ONHP to the natural health product directorate, under the food side of regulations. So we had food and drugs, and we would take it from the drug side and move it under the food side because it was more akin to foods than it was to drugs.

That bill died when the election of June 2004 was called and it reappeared in the 38th Parliament with the help of my colleague, the member for Oshawa, who tabled the bill and we got agreement to keep the name.

The outcome of that was that NHPs were placed not where we wanted them under food, but they remained as a subclass under the drug side of the regulations. So, this is where are we since that day.

Currently, natural health products are regulated as a subclass of drugs for regulatory purposes, although they have their own regulations. That has been the status since 2006. When we started this process there were some 50,000 to 60,000 products on the market. What has been happening in the interim is that there are about 6,000 products that have been approved.

I notice the member for Yukon, who is still with us in the debate, in his speech earlier mentioned there were some 33,000 to 40,000 products backlogged and that is probably accurate. There are about 6,000 that have gone through the approval process of that huge number that were out there a few years ago.

About half of the products applying do not make it through the regulatory process. A lot of good products are dropping off the shelves in Canada under the current regulatory regime. Those that are approved are the simple ones. They are single monograph products, not the combined products. Many of the more effective well-known and popular remedies that are out there are multi-ingredient products. Most of those have not even started into the process yet. So a lot of products are not making it through.

Complicating it further is the fact that many good products that come from outside the country from the United States, for example, are not being shipped into Canada because the producers find the regulatory regime is too onerous and the market is too small. They have just stopped shipping their product to Canada, so we are losing products that way. That is the current situation.

People in the industry are frustrated at the lengthy delays in receiving an NPN and lengthy requests for more information. It seems products like Red Bull or an energy drink gets an NPN fairly readily. They will never have a hope of impacting anybody's health, but they might give people a kick or a little better high, or keep them awake if they are mixed, as some young people do, with alcohol which we would not recommend. We would end up with a drunk who is a little more alert.

Those products seem to make it through the regulatory process in a flash, but natural health products that could have a real impact on serious illnesses seem to be having a hard time getting through.

I want to return to the letter from the scientist. Speaking at a conference just a month ago, so we are not talking ancient history, Dr. Bonnie Kaplan from the University of Calgary spoke about her experience with the product Empowerplus. I know others in the House have mentioned this product already and probably most members have some knowledge of this vitamin and mineral product produced in Alberta. It had a profound impact on people with bipolar disease.

This product attracted some attention in Alberta. The government of Alberta said whoa, there is a huge problem, a lot of people seem to be taking this. It had the Alberta Science and Research Authority examine the product and it commissioned a study at the University of Calgary with some $544,000 in funding. The initial results were very promising. In fact, there were some four peer review articles published.

About this time, Health Canada moved in to shut down the study under the regulations of the day. It called on the RCMP to raid the company and contact 3,000 Canadians, and order them back on their psychiatric drugs even though many of them were taking the product with the knowledge of their physician and many of them had been well for years by simply taking vitamins and minerals.

I want to use that as an illustration of why people are alarmed at the regulations in Bill C-51. It is not simply what is in the bill, it is the behaviour of the department in the last number of years that has people alarmed. Given the tools that are in Bill C-51, it is concerns that with the wrong attitude this could ensure that a lot of very good products will never see the light of day in our country given this response. I mentioned: thousands of Canadians were taking the product, the Alberta response, the early results, and that Health Canada shut down the study, and sent in the RCMP.

Just to go on with Empowerplus for a minute, there was a researcher from Harvard, Dr. Charles Popper, a world renowned psychopharmacologist. He testified at a court case just after the last election. I unfortunately missed it, but I did read his testimony. He testified that he learned how to help people get off drugs from the lay people in this company who have accumulated a lot of experience trying to help people with their condition by taking these vitamins, minerals and amino-acids, and improving their mental health.

I wish members could have been there to hear testimony from a woman named Sabina from Renfrew. She had been on psychiatric drugs for 18 years and in spite of that, in and out of hospital.

Sadly, with the condition she was afflicted with, when she was not trying to take her own life, she was trying to take her husband's life. She had been on vitamins a year and a half, when I met her, and had not had a single failure. That is something that, I think, would attract some attention. Some people may say this is helping, although it is anecdotal evidence, but she was one of about 3,000 Canadians who had improved.

By the time I met her, a year and a half after taking these products, she was no longer trying to kill herself. She was working and paying taxes. I have to admit as a Conservative, I like that. She is also volunteering. She is not on the high needs list but back out in society and producing. When I saw her at the court case, where she testified for this company against Health Canada, she had lost 60 pounds, was off all her medication, and taking nothing but vitamins.

The company she worked for was so impressed with her that it sent her to get a university degree and she is volunteering to train horses on the side. She is a tremendously productive lady, a lady with a tremendous sense of humour. I wish everyone could meet her.

I wish everyone could have met no less than the former deputy prime minister of Norway when he was in Ottawa. He came to meet with Health Canada officials about this product because he had a child that was out of control and nobody in Norway had been able to help him. He heard about this product and ordered it for his child. His child improved so much that he wanted to import this product to help other people in Norway, but he could not because there was a warning on the Health Canada website, which is still there to this day, that says this is an untested and dangerous product. Therefore, even with his connections, he was not able to import the product.

When I had lunch with him, he was later scheduled to meet with Health Canada officials. When they found out why he was here, they cancelled his appointment. It seems, sadly, that no one at Health Canada was willing to meet with Sabina or with this gentleman or with thousands of Canadians. The minister of the day was not willing to meet with them.

Everyone taking the product was concerned when Health Canada was trying to shut down this product at the border because the minister of the day had the attitude or the approach that this was an untested. The minister said, “It could be thalidomide”.

That is disappointing, but that kind of attitude seems to be what is prevailing at Health Canada, even to this day, and that is why people are concerned about the implications in the bill. This is the same Health Canada that could be handed extraordinary and, some might say, draconian provisions by the bill.

There are some concerns. People would like to know that the vision of the transition team would come to pass and that the regulatory regime would be a friendly one that helps natural health products, which by nature are low risk, become more available.

One of the concerns is subsection 15.1(4), which says simply that the minister has the power to put any product or class of products under prescription only status. The challenge is simply that vitamins and minerals, nutritional products, amino-acids are what we are made of. They have always been in the public domain, but under the powers in the bill the minister could simply move something from the natural health product class over to a drug class in certain potencies. The minister has those powers. That is one concern.

Another concern is in regard to clinical trials. The bill says that clinical trials must be approved for designated therapeutic products. We depend on most of the research on natural health products to understand how they work. We found out a little while ago that vitamin D has a big impact on people with multiple sclerosis and now the recommendation is that we should be taking vitamin D to reduce a whole host of other conditions, including many cancers.

We are concerned about the availability of these products. University research could be put at risk. Some would argue that universities could be asked if they applied for a clinical trial for basic research.

Finally, the definition of government has people concerned. I will finish with this simple remark. The government, under this definition, could be another international government or agency that could bring in regulations from the World Health Organization or Codex, for example, and impose them on the Canadian public without due consideration or consultation here at home. Those are some of the concerns.

Mr. Speaker, constituents in my riding of Newton—North Delta have many concerns. They are very worried.

I had the opportunity to meet a couple in their seventies, Adella and Richard Matthews. When they came to my office, they expressed concern that when they go to doctors now, they have to wait two hours. They are worried that if this legislation goes through, they will not be able to obtain the products they have been using successfully for the last 30 years, which are helping their health. Their health will deteriorate and they will lose the chance of using those products.

How would the member address the concern of those constituents who think that these natural health products will go under prescription and will not be available to them at a reasonable cost?

Many Canadians are concerned. Recent statistics tell us about 71% of Canadians are taking some form of vitamins and minerals regularly. I suppose that is because they believe it makes a difference, and it is good advice. In my opinion, we should be taking something.

The problem seems to come from Health Canada's long-standing approach that people should not be allowed to what it calls self-diagnose or self-treat for what it wants to define as serious disease.

That attitude itself may be the root of the problem. It seems the attitude may be a bias that is as old as the Food and Drugs Act itself. It may be an entrenched bias. I use the word “bias” to simply mean it is our world view. I suppose we all have a bias. I suppose the only people who do not have a bias are the ones who have not thought about something long enough to form an opinion.

My point is there seems to be a problem with the way the thinking has been in the past in Health Canada. I hope we can see this change, that a different vision could be accomplished. It may be that our minister will become the champion the transition team has looked for, someone who would like to see natural products take their rightful place.

However, it is an attitude. Some people think we should be unable to get help without medical supervision, such as somebody takes Empowerplus for mental health, which is a serious illness, and the fact that vitamins and minerals, which by and large are in the public domain, would help them with that problem.

The challenge is this approach has left us with a problem that is still getting worse. Here we see something that is offering great promise from the public domain, vitamins and minerals helping to sort out a biochemical problem. Maybe we need to freshen our outlook and ensure we have people in charge of the regulations and a perspective that protects the interests of the public to ensure we investigate, analyze and study the things that are most hopeful.

A tremendous number of articles have come out about vitamin D. Just yesterday there was another article in the newspapers about vitamin D and calcium reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes.

For chocolate lovers in the room today, there was an article in the same paper yesterday, which said that chocolate had Tryptophan in it. This is an amino acid that Health Canada took off the market for a while. Tryptophan is an amino acid found in turkey and chicken soup, but it is important in producing Serotonin, which is important in regulating mood and reducing anxiety. All the anti-depressant drugs, or many of them, are selected Serotonin reuptake inhibitors, SSUI, so we do not break down the Serotonin and it makes us feel better.

A simple thing like chocolate, or Tryptophan, an amino acid, if we have enough of it in our system, helps to calm people down. Maybe we should try to ensure those are more available rather than less available.

Mr. Speaker, first, I congratulate the hon. member and express to the House how much we all appreciate the wisdom he brings. He has obviously been on this issue for many years.

I would like to ask a question on some of the questions he posed in his speech.

In the government's response, the Health Minister has chosen to send a letter to the chair of the health committee expressing these proposed amendments about which the member has heard. There are really three key amendments. The third is the legislated category, and that will be my main question. Without a legislated category for natural health products, I think the concern would be greater, that pharmaceutical companies would ultimately be able to take over the natural health products.

My hon. friend opposite asked about the costs being driven up, and this is how that would happen. In the third legislated category pharmaceutical companies could not take it over. As a result, the prices would stay the same.

I simply mention for my hon. friend that the research under the third proposed amendment, the research required by natural health products, would take into consideration historical empirical evidence. We have traditional histories, which I think are very respectful of our aboriginal communities and our Chinese communities, for example, that have used products without harm for 5,000 years. The proposed amendments the minister has put on the table will actually help all those areas.

The final issue is Health Canada, which is a huge concern of all members here. The legislation and the proposed amendments will point out that there will be a need or a conviction on the part of Health Canada to act in good faith and act reasonably. That will be worded in the new documents and the proposed changes.

Could the member comment on how the third category would stop some of the pharmaceutical influence?

Mr. Speaker, that was a very good point raised by my colleague from Cambridge. I know he has a big interest in this file as well and a lot of experience in using natural health products and making them available to his patients in his former career.

I look forward to hearing that information come forward from the minister. I am sure he has done his best to try to remedy this, to make it palatable and make it work better. That is the minister's interest at this time.

I have not seen the fine print or the details of how they propose to do that. I hope it will accomplish the minister's intention. From previous attempts, we were told we had a third category under the Food and Drugs Act, when they simply took the regs and plunked them as a subclass of drugs.

With respect to type II diabetes, we had a big push for aboriginal communities to enhance the diagnosis for type II diabetes on reserve, since that is a federal responsibility. The same day there was an article in the local paper here about a herbal product from native aboriginal history, which turned out to be just as successful as the best drugs in managing type II diabetes. I wonder why we did not choose to promote that approach first in their community, which was a long-standing part of their culture.

Mr. Speaker, a document on the Health Canada website talks about Bill C-51 and natural health products. There are 42 questions and each one of them basically pooh-poohs all the concerns raised by Canadians.

Now the member has laid out that significant amendments have been proposed. It means this document is not worth the paper on which it is written. It means Health Canada does not have the confidence of that member or any other member across the way. It also means the bill should be withdrawn now, amendments made and re-submitted to the House so Canadians can have a bill with which they can work. To send it to committee without these amendments will complicate the process.

Mr. Speaker, the fact amendments are coming is a good thing. We must remember this is a big bill and it is complicated. It does not deal only with natural health products. It deals with drugs, cells, blood, cell cultures. There is a whole lot more in the bill than natural health products. It seems the biggest concerns have been in this realm.

We hope the amendments, which will be forthcoming in time for committee to take them right at the beginning of its deliberations, will help to ameliorate the situation.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-51. My constituents have deluged my office with emails, letters and campaign materials. The community has huge concerns about the bill. It is a key bill for the future of the health of Canadians. Therefore, it needs careful deliberation and study.

While the bill has been introduced by the government with the goal of improving the health and well-being of Canadians, there are serious concerns that it will have the opposite effect. We want the products and the medications we use to do no harm. That has not been the case in the past, where everything from children's toys to food to pharmaceutical products have done great harm to Canadians because of the lack of government vigilance and regulation.

We want our products to be safe and effective, but many people use natural health products. They are very concerned about the legislation. They are concerned that somehow by using the term therapeutic in Bill C-51, natural products and the practice of natural medicine will be lumped in with the pharmaceutical products to which people want to exercise choice to choose an alternative.

We have heard in the House before that in previous hearings in the 1990s, the Standing Committee on Health recommended a separate special definition and separate regulations for dealing with natural products. To me, that makes very good sense, but that is not what is contemplated with this legislation.

I believe the people who have raised this alarm across the country have absolute validity in raising their concerns. They do not want to use natural products that are not good for them, but they understand natural health products are not the same as pharmaceutical products. Chemical compounds are required to have very rigorous testing before they are allowed on the market, and even then not with always universal success.

I want to read a couple of the letters I have received. They have been send by very many eloquent, well-informed people who are very concerned about the legislation. I will only read a couple of letters.

The first one is from a woman in my riding. She is a community leader and works in health care. She says:

“I'm writing to express my concerns about Bill C-51 and the impact it will have on the ability of my naturopathic doctor to treat my health concerns safely and effectively. As an informed patient, I have chosen to be treated by a naturopathic doctor utilizing natural therapies and substances to ensure optimal health. I'd like some assurances that my choice to see a naturopathic doctor will not be negatively affected by Bill C-51.

I have the following questions: Will Bill C-51 exclude my naturopathic doctor from having access to all the products that they need to treat all my health concerns? Will Bill C-51 result in fewer natural health products being available in the Canadian marketplace? Will inspectors have the ability to enter premises under the search and seizure provisions without a warrant or a judge's approval?

I support the need for regulation that ensures that the products recommended by my naturopathic doctor are safe and effective, but I do not support legislation that treats natural health products in the same manner as pharmaceutical products.

Now would be an excellent time for the government to implement a third strategy for natural health products as was recommended by the Standing Committee on Health in 1998”.

I have one other letter. This is from a person who signs it F.P. Jr. It says:

“I'm writing to express my disapproval and disagreement with Bill C-51. It's something to make every democratic person's blood run cold. The bill proposes significant changes to the current Food and Drugs Act that will have wide-ranging negative implications for Canadians.

I'm a paraplegic and with what Bill C-51 entails it would totally eradicate my essential needs of natural products due to my debilitating condition.

Further on it states, “I intensely disagree with Bill C-51 and its aim to remove parliamentary decision making and oversight from national legislation. Bill C-51 is intended to replace democratic representative government with unelected closed door decision making which will bind all citizens”.

There is real concern about the wording which would lump natural products and all kinds of alternative health remedies in with pharmaceutical drugs. There is also concern about the process that would take place for the approval of these remedies. There are estimates that up to 70% of natural health products would fail to meet the more stringent testing requirements that are in place for pharmaceuticals.

One writer stated, “There is concern that Health Canada inspectors would create an equivalent of a police state in terms of their powers to search private property for illegal natural health products. It makes me want to lock up the vitamin C I take in the morning. It is very troubling for people who believe that this is the best thing for their health”.

There is also concern that Bill C-51 describes a practitioner as someone who is authorized under the law of a province to prescribe or dispense prescription therapeutic drugs. Since naturopathic doctors do not have prescribing rights, they would be prevented from making recommendations to their patients.

These are some of the major concerns I have been contacted about. It seems that if there were a third category created and if there were regulations for these natural products, that would go some way to alleviating the concerns that people have. However, these are not the only concerns about this bill.

Certainly there is concern about direct to consumer advertising. Under the current law there is a very clearcut, straightforward ban on advertising for health products and pharmaceuticals. This bill would allow that ban to be bypassed at the cabinet table. That the cabinet could be subject to phenomenal pressure by lobbyists from the pharmaceutical industry, I believe, is not in the best interests of Canadians. Therefore, I am also very concerned about the weakening of the ban on advertising. Already there are loopholes in the ban and companies are advertising. We see tongue in cheek, cheeky ads on television, where it is hide and seek about the product that is being advertised. This is a loophole and, in fact, that loophole should be closed, not opened up, which it well could be by this legislation.

There is concern about the role of the pharmaceutical industry in influencing this legislation. There are many people who choose natural products because they have a mistrust of the role of the pharmaceutical industry, sometimes justified. We have seen cases such as Vioxx and others that have created terrible problems for people. There are some perhaps that are not justified, where the pharmaceuticals that are available to us have been of great assistance to people. What is of concern is the power the pharmaceutical industry has in terms of influencing legislators in terms of public policy.

As the industry critic for my party, I was very concerned about the proposed changes to the drug patent laws that will allow the pharmaceutical industry to continue to evergreen or extend the patent protection for certain drugs and to deny generic drug manufacturers the opportunity to offer their products in the marketplace. There will be a huge cost to the public. This will cost public health plans, private health plans and individuals hundreds of millions of dollars. It is a huge change. The proposed changes were put out without prior notification, without consultation, except to the pharmaceutical industry. There are real concerns about what this continued evergreening and continued patent protection will mean.

There are real concerns about the role of the pharmaceutical industry. There are many people who choose another path, that of naturopathic medicine and naturopathic doctors. We need to reassure them that they will be able to continue to use the products that they believe are assisting with their health and that they know are essential to their well-being.

I just want to say with all the clarity I can that I oppose Bill C-51 as it now stands. Not only could it open the door to direct consumer advertising, with which I strongly disagree, but it gives too much discretion to the minister. It is a thinly veiled attempt to bring in natural health products under the rubric of pharmaceuticals.

Natural health products are a vital component to our health care system. They should be a separate category with separate regulations. We should be operating not on a risk management approach but on a do no harm approach. This bill does not achieve that.